Post-Depression cuisine

Talking on the phone recently, my mom and I got onto Foods of the Past. Here is her best recollection of a week’s meals in her post-Depression girlhood:

Weekday dinners
Monday: chicken soup, chicken
Tuesday: escarole soup, chicken croquettes
Wednesday: meatloaf
Thursday: macaroni (i.e., pasta) and meatballs
Friday: fish

Weekend lunches and dinners
Saturday: pizza, steak
Sunday: chicken, cold cuts

Everyone listened to The Shadow while eating cold cuts for dinner.

Potatoes and vegetables (carrots, green beans, peas, zucchini) accompanied chicken, fish, and meatloaf. Produce came from a fruit and vegetable store. (Gardening in my mom’s family was devoted to roses.) Chickens were freshly killed at a poultry store. Everything was homemade: my mom’s grandmother ground chicken to make croquettes, and she made and cut pasta, even spaghetti, by hand, without a machine, every strand the same.

My mom wants it to be clear that this schedule was not unvarying: lamb chops and pork chops and other dishes came into play. This schedule was more or less a routine — and a pretty nice one, I’d say.

All details used with permission. Thanks, Mom.

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Depression cuisine